A Catastrophe for Justice? The Issue of Rule of Law and Retribution in the Transnational Legal Debate at the End of the First World War
Abstract
In 1914 German classical philologist Hermann Diels called the beginning of the First World War „a catastrophe for scholarship”. Sure enough, this global conflict in most cases formed the end of a long-time collaboration of legal scholars, who had tried to create international norms for transnational disputes. Contributing articles to newspapers and journals most of the men involved joined their national war efforts claiming that their country was legally right, while the enemy was at fault. The presentation at hand will deal with the issues of the rule of law and retribution in the debate amongst legal scholars that resumed at the end of the First World War. It furthermore wonders to what extent this debate influenced the discussions on penalties at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In a transnational perspective the focus will be on developments in Great Britain, France, the United States as well as the German and Ottoman Empire.
Date Issued
2024-12
Publication Type
Article
Subjects
Justice
•
Rule of Law
•
World War I
Language(s)
en
Author(s)
Leidinger, Hannes |
Additional Credits
Journal
Vermessung einer Zeitenschwelle: Die Bedeutung des Jahres 1918 in österreichischer, europäischer und globaler Perspektive – Surveying a Time Threshold: The Importance of 1918 in an Austrian, European and Global Perspective
Publisher
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Access(Rights)
restricted